Hey, hi, hello! Welcome to Passionately Curious. I’m Gina, and I have a lot of questions. I always have, and I’m pretty sure that I always will.

That’s me, with the silly hair:

Recently, I was working in retail as a manager. It wasn’t a bad job, but after seven years, I was burned out. I was burned out on the long hours, losing all of my holidays in the name, and devoting entirely too much of my life to a giant retail chain.

So I left.

Over the course of three months, my husband and I would discuss what quitting my job would look like for us. What do we need to do to make sure we could survive financially? What would my options be if I left my job? Would I get another retail job? Would I start my own business? Would I go back to school?

We finally got really into the logistics while we were on a road trip along the east coast. We were in the car with our dog, Nibbler (don’t worry, you will see plenty of her) and our cat, Mr.Longbottom (LB is shy. You may not see too much of him) when the idea came to me. I never finished my Bachelor’s Degree. So I enrolled in school and tried to find a writing gig, since writing was my dream job. Turns out most employers won’t hire a writer that doesn’t already have experience as a writer.

I talked to my friends, and many of them agreed on one thing: I should start a blog. About what, though? SERIOUSLY! The internet is flooded with folks like myself that are trying to do exactly what I’m doing. I had no idea what to focus on, and it felt like I liked too much stuff to really focus on any one thing; I am a jack of all trades, and admittedly, an expert at none. I have always had friends that were doing incredible things, but I was always on the sidelines watching these people add color to their lives and their communities. I was the perpetual cheerleader for them and for our communities.

Then it hit me when I was on my way to a local coffee shop. For many years I had an Albert Einstein quote attached to my professional e-mail signatures; “I have no special talents; I am only passionately curious.” I know some people that have done incredible things, and I have so many questions about who they are and what brought them to do what they do. I have been to incredible places and have so many questions about how those places came to be. People that have given home births, run doughnut shops, run breweries, are “friends for hire”…and their stories are all amazing. Insanely, unbelievably inspiring and amazing. I wanted to share their stories…and that’s how Passionately Curious was born.

I want to keep asking questions. I want to keep telling those stories.